It wasn’t your everyday experience, hearing Bible verses mixed with particulars from epidemiology and neurobiology in the same breath. But that’s what Dave Lockridge was doing as the 20 people in his Monday night ACE Overcomers class at Gateway Community Church in Merced, CA, busily scribbled in their workbooks.

Lockridge – a grandfather, former pastor and businessman – is executive director of ACE Overcomers, an organization he created to provide programs to “overcome addiction, depression, anxiety, and anger caused by a childhood filled with abuse, neglect and household dysfunction.”

He was pastor of a small church in nearby Atwater, CA, when his wife, Susan, director of medical staff